Gainesville Friends Meeting was, during 2005, a meeting in transition, even a transient meeting. We held our final meeting for worship in our old meetinghouse on NW 2nd Avenue on February 6. The groundbreaking ceremony for the new meetinghouse on NW 38th Street took place on March 20. On April 4 a lengthy article appeared in the Gainesville Sun, informing the larger community of our plans. On June 12 the Southeastern Yearly Meeting trustees and executive committee members combined their annual meeting with a trip to Gainesville to see the new meetinghouse's progress.
Without a permanent residence, we met most First Days at the Hillel Center on University Avenue, but we also held a number of meetings in private homes. Fortunately, despite the instability of our situation, our numbers remained steady, our spirit stayed strong, and a few new attenders joined us along the way.
As in 2004, our "Quaker Market" subcommittee planned and carried out a series of fundraising dinners, including Irish, "local," All-American, French Canadian, and Latin American cuisine. The subcommittee also sold cookbooks, beans, peace buttons, gift bags, and T-shirts. The Bible Seminar studied, among other things, the Gospel of Thomas. Quaker Earthcare Witness created a "tool library" so that people could borrow tools from one another without having to buy or rent them. The Quaker Study Group continued to meet, as did our "Inquirers Group" for newcomers. But forums, potluck Sundays, and Meetings for Healing were discontinued during our time of wandering. A committee was formed for the purpose of starting a Friends school in Gainesville.
The Peace and Social Concerns Committee joined with other religious groups in a vigil on the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and again when the 2,000th U.S. soldier was killed. Members of the committee helped impress on the Alachua County School Board the need to make parents more directly aware that they can have their children's names removed from the list given to military recruiters. Further, Peace and Social Concerns co-hosted a fundraiser for the victims of the tsunami. And through the Houston Meeting the committee found a mother and her seven children who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina for us to adopt for the holidays.
The Ministry and Nurture Committee sponsored our participation in three outreach opportunities: a booth at Santa Fe Community College's Religious Diversity Event, another at UF's Lesbian, Bi, Gay, and Transgendered welcome event, and a third at the Gay Pride Event downtown. Some of us marched in the Pride Parade. Throughout the year Ministry and Nurture led us in threshing proposed sections of the new SEYM Faith and Practice. It also encouraged a more worshipful atmosphere during Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business.
We took under prayerful consideration SEYM's request to propose a minute concerning our affiliation with Friends United Meeting. A forum was held in September to present the basic facts of FUM's history and population distribution as well as FUM's history with SEYM. A period of worship sharing followed the forum. In October we approved a minute that reads in part, "In spite of disagreeing with the policy of hiring only persons who are celibate or married (one man, one woman), it is the sense of the meeting that maintaining the affiliation with FUM is best for all Friends." At the same time we approved a minute supporting loving and committed relationships independent of the sexual orientation of the individuals involved.
During 2005 we recorded Karen Porter as a minister for the purpose of counseling people in matters of conscience related to military service. We helped sponsor Devender Sellar's attendance at the triennial World Gathering of Young Friends in Lancaster, England, a trip that enabled him to reconnect with his spiritual roots.
We rejoiced in the birth of three babies: Hoyt, son of Jen and Bryan Cotter; Jake, grandson of John and Jean Burton; and Nate, grandson of Dick and Gene Beardsley. On April 9 our meeting celebrated the union in marriage of Marilyn Muller and Phil Hall, held under the care of the meeting. We ended the year with a rousing Christmas party at the house of Andy and Eleanor Merritt.
The move into the new meetinghouse was postponed into the early months of 2006, but we were able to rejoice at year's end in seeing the building substantially completed.
Submitted by Don Smith, Clerk